Fruit of the Land

[Sam Wilson]

LiCR,

Well, with a little sadness, today we took our last big harvest of our avocados.  We still have a few small fruit hanging here and there and in a week or so I'll go look for something worth picking, but we are pretty much done after 3 months of picking the biggies.  This year was our best harvest ever, and coincidentally, I think we maybe had zero neighbors stealing fruit.  Maybe year after year of me talking about installing automatic shotguns paid off?  jajaja.  Or maybe the few neighbors who have moved on were my nemeses of years past?  Today, on the very same day, we had our 1st good coffee harvest.  This too was our best coffee harvest.  Now all of my coffee is shade-grown -- mostly thanks to bigger avocado trees.  I don't know for sure if my coffee plants are Coffea arabica (Arabica coffee) or Coffea canephora (Robusta coffee,) however even though traditionally Arabica was shade-grown and Robusta is sun-grown, I think all my coffee plants are Robusta and they are doing quite well in the shade.  I think we'll have at least one more big coffee harvest and maybe a smaller one after that.  We took almost all the red berries, and left almost double that in green berries.  And on our little farm, the plátano drumbeat continues on as we harvest plátanos and sweet bananas year-round.

Well life on the farm is kinda laid back

Ain't much an old country boy like me can't hack

It's early to rise, early in the sack

Thank God I'm a country boy 

Sam, in Guanacaste

[gene]

Please save me a few for seeds...

Kids killed one of my trees with weedeater...

Pura vida

Gene

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[Sam Wilson]

Gene,

I'm sure we've got several pits drying on the kitchen window sill waiting for you to come by.  Also, we usually have a few small avocado trees popping up in one of my wife's jardincitos where she doesn't want such a thing.  She always tosses pits from tasty avocados in the garden and magically they sprout up a bit later and we either transplant them out back or give them away.  When you come by we'll dig one up and you're welcome to all the pits you want.  I told the fam to save them for you along with any 3L bottles for your milking operation.

BTW, driving down the mountain the other day I thought I spied a new tower sprouting on the top of one of your big hills.  You think you'll be able to snag a signal out of Liberia with that?  I'll bet that will that give you line of sight to Cañas and maybe Puntarenas as well?

When a chapeador cuts one of saplings it is the last time we use them.  We've had a pretty good one for years now that is VERY careful around little (and big) trees.  I guess chapeadors are easier to get rid of when they aren't your kids... jajajaja.

--

Sam

[gene]

Thank you so much for the seeds...

Nooo  you are not imagining things..the kids and i got up two sections of rohn 25 tower ..

Will put up the othe two sections and guy it down when the base cement hardens...probably mid week...although i am too old to be erecting towers...

I have erected many for my ham antennas over the past 50 years...got my novice license in 1968...wn5wsx...those were the days...now i am an extra class ti7/aa5nx is the call i use here...aa5nx is my us issued call...cw only of course!!!

From our big hill i can see 360 degrees from the beaches out past liberia to the wind mills in tiliran...is beautiful from up there ...

I am line of sight to 3 of minors towers...2 near liberia and the other in bagaces...

I know you dont have to guy 40 feet of rohn 25 tower but minor says at 40 km the antenna has to be rock solid...since the 5ghz microwave signal is laser thin...no room for error.. the first if the week i have to find a solar store...i need 150 to 200 watt solar panel and a 20 amp controller...going to use a lead acid 80 amphour battery....no need to go gel or mppt controllers... when i find one and go...wanna ride shitgun???

I know you are eyeing a solar project too!!!

Pura vida

Gene

Included are a few pics of the install...

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[Gene French]

Excuse me...that should be "shotgun"...

Gene

[Marie Vigil McCain]

my avocado  hasn't  produced this year . the last time it gave tons of fruit. there are two others that have  never produced guess we'll  cut them down, cause they at closer to the house Than I want.

bananas too are bad. most just have a "layer" or two.

[Sam Wilson]

Marie,

You may already know this, but some avocados naturally are biennial fruiting trees -- meaning every other year they bear heavier than the year in-between.  Also the flowering on avocados is interesting...  There are type A flowers and type B flowers.  Over a two day period, the type A flowers first open as a female for a few hours on day 1 and then open as a male flower for a few hours on day 2.  The type B flowers do just the opposite:  day 1 they open as males and day 2 they open as females.  Even though all the flowers have functioning male and female parts, they are not self-pollinating.  The ideal scenario for production is to have a type A avocado next to a type B avocado and hope for cross pollination.  The short 2-day blooming period is also problematic...  A windy day or a rainy day can either knock the blooms off or make the busy bees less busy...  Also with biennial fruiting trees the theory is that the heavy fruiting year saps the energy of the tree so it requires the low-fruiting year to build back up for heavier bearing next year -- I'm not sure if that is true or not, but some think that is the reason.

What is protogynous, diurnally synchronous dichogamy (pdsd) in Avocado?

I think we've grown all of our trees from seed which takes a little longer to fruit than grafted ones you might buy from a nursery so if those that have never produced are young, that may be why.

We've never really fertilized much, besides one year putting a good bit of horse manure around, but there are some well thought out fertilizer regimens for avocados you can find pretty easily by googling about.

I don't recall if you are in a cooler area of Costa Rica, but we are at 600m (18ºC-30ºC yearly temp range) and our bananas (plátanos, cuadrados, etc.) grow almost like a pesky weed.  We have to thin them out a bit to prevent them from taking over an area after a few years.  We usually cut off the male peduncle (the big dangly part) after the fruit have set on the theory that it makes for bigger fruit, but I don't know if that is an old wive's tale or not.  Some of our cultivars regularly produce 10-12 "manos" (or layers as you say) and others maybe only 6 or 7.  We've mostly been promoting plátanos enanos (dwarf plaintains) for the past couple of years and harvest those with maybe 4, 5, or 6 manos.  Each mano might have 6 or 7 dedos (individual banana fruits.)

Sorry to hear about the off year.  Hopefully the next will be bountiful!

--

Sam

[Joe Harrison]

Maybe LiCR wasn't such a great idea after all.  Damn Sam, I'm getting jealous, which we all learned is bad, sinful, a big NO-NO, etc. etc.  But geez you live a great life.  And here I am in beautiful downtown Rohrmoser City, far from the MadDENing crowds of los estados desunidos, but full of sirens/shootings/traffic jams/unhappy people/marches and counter marches and all the rest of the crap that I escaped from up in gringolandia.  Wish I were a country boy.  😣  joe, miserably in pavas/rohrmoser/san jose or whatever.

[Gene French]

That reminds me of our pecan trees in louisiana...as kids we picked them up and sold them....was nice extra spending money for us ..we did not have too much...as i remember the trees only produced a significant crop every other year...maybe for avacados???

Gene...

[Sam Wilson]

Gene,

Yes, pecans are mostly biennial fruiting, but sometimes even triennial (once every 3 years) or worse.  Maybe with avocados it really is the same about needing to store up for a big fruiting season, because studies in pecans have shown the severity of the low fruiting season depends upon 3 main things:  time of fruit maturity, the manner in which the fruit grows (most at end of season,) and the composition of the kernel (~70% lipids = requires lots of energy to produce.)  For more than a 100 years serious attempts have failed at trying to predict the pecan harvest in the US.  As with most biennial fruiting trees, the severity of the low season depends a lot upon cultivar.  With pecans, often the bigger the nut the worse the low-season, but some do pretty well at producing a moderate crop year after year.  Maybe out in your neck of the swamp you had Caddo pecans?  They are pretty decent compared to others like the Elliot or Kanza varieties.  My dad loved pecans and he planted dozes and dozens of them but he died before any of those ever got big enough to bear fruit.  Now our old family farm has been converted into a nudist colony and while I'm sure there are plenty of nuts hanging out, I don't think they've got any pecans...  ;-)

Production Characteristics of the United States Pecan Industry

Pecan Breeding

On Mon, Aug 27, 2018 at 8:47 AM Joe Harrison <joeharr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> [ ... ] I'm getting jealous, [ ... ] you live a great life.  And here I am in beautiful downtown Rohrmoser City,

> [ ... ] but full of sirens/shootings/traffic jams/unhappy people/marches and counter marches and all the rest

> of the crap that I escaped from up in gringolandia.  Wish I were a country boy.

Joe, it is not too late to get outta town!!!  What I call our finquita is really just an old onion field out back that we've turned into our family zona verde by planting, planting, and more planting of fruiting and flowering things.  I've kind of run out of room to plant things without infringing upon our mejenga area (relatively flat spot for impromptu fútbol matches w/the neighborhood kids.)   We for sure don't have enough "farm" for making any real money, but we grow a lot of stuff we eat and my wife loves to have extra to give away.  Now, I've got a cuñado who is a serious farmer.  He makes millónes on cebollas, sandia, y arroz every year.  During planting season he's one of the biggest employers around and some of his regular Nicas come down just for the seasonal work.  He's a decent fellow and I think he pays well for solid workers.

You can rent nice cheap houses in little out-back towns all over Costa Rica and avoid the sirens/shootings/traffic jams (except for cattle blocking the road)/unhappy people, etc.  Life is too short for unhappy!!!  ;-)

Bob Marley - Don't Worry Be Happy!

You are welcome to come play country boy at Gene's place any given morning about 4:00 AM when the milk cows start mooing!  jajaja...  ;-)

Good luck!

--

Sam

[Gene French]

We had stuart pecans that we sold   

Small heavy pecans...very hard to get the meat out...we had a much bigger tree that had what we called papershell pecans...those are the ones we cooked and ate with...our trees were huge and well over 100 years old ... they also supported some of the most dangerous sack swings known to exist...we had to climb another tree just to reach the sack...lol...

Life here reminds me of my younger days except with internet...back then all we had was a can and string telephone!!!

Joe...come look around...you might like the country life...is a different mindset and a different lifestyle ...

For me it is very satisfying  .

Going to bed after a good days work...sleep like a rock!!!

But to each his own...

Pura vida...

Thanks sam y joe!!!

Gene

On Aug 27, 2018, at 11:23 AM, Sam Wilson <sliw...@gmail.com> wrote:

Gene,

Yes, pecans are mostly biennial fruiting, but sometimes even triennial (once every 3 years) or worse.  Maybe with avocados it really is the same about needing to store up for a big fruiting season, because studies in pecans have shown the severity of the low fruiting season depends upon 3 main things:  time of fruit maturity, the manner in which the fruit grows (most at end of season,) and the composition of the kernel (~70% lipids = requires lots of energy to produce.)  For more than a 100 years serious attempts have failed at trying to predict the pecan harvest in the US.  As with most biennial fruiting trees, the severity of the low season depends a lot upon cultivar.  With pecans, often the bigger the nut the worse the low-season, but some do pretty well at producing a moderate crop year after year.  Maybe out in your neck of the swamp you had Caddo pecans?  They are pretty decent compared to others like the Elliot or Kanza varieties.  My dad loved pecans and he planted dozes and dozens of them but he died before any of those ever got big enough to bear fruit.  Now our old family farm .has been converted into a nudist colony and while I'm sure there are plenty of nuts hanging out, I don't think they've got any pecans...  ;-)

[john p. Miesen]

I am looking for Patricia Biendividos (Lawyer in Heredia ) phone numbers...seems i misplaced

thanks

john miesen

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TO LIVE IN THE PAST ,IS TO DIE IN THE PRESENT

[Fred Hampton]

The number I had last year for her was :  Office 2261-7861  Cell 8672-0645.  If you talk to her please let her know I am in Florida for a few more months.  Thanks, Fred Hampton

“...while finding true love is one of the most splendid things that could happen to you in life, finding a true friend is equally splendid.” ― Félix J. Palma, The Map of the Sky

[Sam Wilson]

James,

Could that perhaps be Licenciada Patricia Benavides Chaverri out of Heredia?

    Patricia Benavides Chaverri

    https://www.facebook.com/patricia.benavideschaverri

I don't use Facebook, but maybe you can contact her through that?  Or perhaps

proper spelling of her last name(s) will help find her using directory assistence?

Good luck!

--

Sam

[Sam Wilson]

Looks like a winner Fred!

    kölbi1155 phone lookup

    https://www.kolbi1155.com/Heredia/Benavides-Chaverri-Patricia/profile/HEREDIA-CENTRAL

    Benavides Chaverri Patricia / Heredia / Heredia Central: 2261 7861

--

Sam

[john p. Miesen]

got it thanks, totals

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[John French]

Patricia Benavides Chaverri

patriciab...@gmail.com

Heredia, Pizza Hut 20m east, left side

8353-7757

Tell her I said hello :-)

John French

On Monday, August 27, 2018 at 2:01:47 PM UTC-6, john p. Miesen wrote:

I am looking for Patricia Biendividos (Lawyer in Heredia ) phone numbers...seems i misplaced

thanks

john miesen

[john p. Miesen]

got it thamks

j

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